Town Hall Meeting Speakers

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Speakers' Biographies

Lela R. McKnight-Eily, PhD

Epidemiologist and Clinical Psychologist, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention Team, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, CDC

Dr. Lela McKnight-Eily is an epidemiologist and licensed clinical psychologist with the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention team at CDC. She came to CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer in 2005 in the Office on Smoking and Health in the Global Tobacco Control Program, Epidemiology Branch. She currently serves as a subject matter expert with the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome prevention team with efforts to increase alcohol screening and brief intervention surveillance on Department of Health and Human Services surveys. Dr. McKnight-Eily has authored and co-authored peer-reviewed journal articles on alcohol use and mental health and sleep, as well as been involved with podcasts and national conference presentations on these subjects.

Dr. McKnight-Eily obtained her doctorate in clinical psychology and masters in education degree from the University of Virginia. She received her undergraduate degree at Vanderbilt University. She completed a pediatric psychology internship at Miami Children’s Hospital and a fellowship through Emory University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in 2004.

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Sheryl Sun, MD

Chair, The Permanente Medical Group, Inc., Chiefs of Adult and Family Medicine, Chief of Adult and Family Medicine, Santa Clara Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente of Northern California

Sheryl Sun, MD, joined the Permanente Medical Group in 1988. She is the chair of the Chiefs of Adult and Family Medicine, where she is responsible for leading the chiefs of Adult and Family Medicine in achieving quality, service, and access goals. Dr. Sun is also the chief of Adult and Family Medicine at Kaiser Santa Clara Medical Center, where she works with internists, medical sub-specialists, and the internal medicine residency training program. Her medical interests include lipidology and preventive cardiology; she co-directs the Cholesterol Clinic at Kaiser Santa Clara.

Dr. Sun received her medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco Medical School, where she also completed her internship and residency in internal medicine. She received her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of California, Davis.

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Hillary Kunins, MD, MPH, MS

Assistant Commissioner, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Dr. Hillary Kunins is an assistant commissioner at the New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where she leads the Department's Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Use – Prevention, Care, and Treatment. She is also a clinical professor in the departments of Medicine, Psychiatry, and Behavioral Sciences, and Family & Social Medicine at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in Bronx, New York. Dr. Kunins is trained in general internal medicine, public health, and clinical research with a focus on substance use services.

Prior to her current role, Dr. Kunins directed Montefiore Medical Center's Residency Program in primary care/social internal medicine, a training program focused on ambulatory-care and vulnerable-populations. She has also served as the medical director of a substance abuse treatment clinic and as director of women's health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Her research, writing, and teaching has focused on opioid use disorders; screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment; women and drug use; and clinical epidemiology.

Dr. Kunins received her medical degree and master of public health from Columbia University, a master of science in clinical research from Albert Einstein College, and an undergraduate degree in religion from Swarthmore College.

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